Prostate enlargement is a condition that affects many men, including, to some degree, most men over the age of 65 years. There are few methods to treat enlarged prostates. One common procedure is open prostatectomy. Open prostatectomy involves a surgeon, through a lower abdominal incision, manually separating the prostate from the surrounding capsule, and removing it by hand. Another common technique is laser enucleation of the prostate. During this procedure enucleation of the anatomic lobes of the prostate are being enucleated. The enucleation procedure are often accomplished by utilizing laser energy for cutting/ablating portion of the prostate and using the ureteroscope to separate the prostate from the capsule and help pushing it to the bladder. This procedure is less intrusive, involving the delivery of surgical instruments to the prostate region via insertion through the urethra. While the latter procedure does have the advantage of being less intrusive, there is a need to improve the handling of internal bleeding, ablation of the prostate and enucleation and separation of the prostate from the capsule during laser enucleation.
For the reasons stated above and for other reasons stated below which will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon reading and understanding the specification, there is a need in the art for a multifunctional surgical apparatus for use in minimally invasive surgical procedures.